Comments on: Is gravity an entropic spring?http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=3677
examining transformative technologyFri, 06 Feb 2015 21:01:48 +0000hourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4By: Steve Devinehttp://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=3677#comment-866065
Steve DevineSat, 16 Jan 2010 23:35:10 +0000http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=3677#comment-866065In Order Out of Chaos, Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers wrote about thermodynamics, especially the stuff that won Ilya the Nobel prize in 1977 or so. It involves the Second Law, about closed systems, and how there are no closed systems in nature. Open systems, with a real flow of energy and matter through their boundaries, have the opposite sign to the entropy function -- in other words systems which experience a flow of energy and matter through them decrease their interior entropy.
One of the ideas in that book revolved around the linkage between Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity. The authors believed it would have the best odds of being found in Thermodynamics or a related field.
This article is making my hair stand up....
If you can handle stoichiometric algebra and mid level calculus, then you can get full mileage out of OOoC. Don't be bashful: Just Dig Right In!In Order Out of Chaos, Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers wrote about thermodynamics, especially the stuff that won Ilya the Nobel prize in 1977 or so. It involves the Second Law, about closed systems, and how there are no closed systems in nature. Open systems, with a real flow of energy and matter through their boundaries, have the opposite sign to the entropy function — in other words systems which experience a flow of energy and matter through them decrease their interior entropy.

One of the ideas in that book revolved around the linkage between Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity. The authors believed it would have the best odds of being found in Thermodynamics or a related field.

This article is making my hair stand up….

If you can handle stoichiometric algebra and mid level calculus, then you can get full mileage out of OOoC. Don’t be bashful: Just Dig Right In!

]]>By: Zephirhttp://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=3677#comment-866054
ZephirSat, 16 Jan 2010 01:22:18 +0000http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=3677#comment-866054/*...3D space is an emergent phenomenon of a 2D information pattern (see the link above). Weird stuff, but no weirder than OTHER forms of string theory....*/
Such assumption has nothing to do with string theory, so it cannot be another form of it (until we consider, every suffuciently abstract insight is in fact sort of string theory). But every theory is defined by its postulate set and everything else is just grant politics./*…3D space is an emergent phenomenon of a 2D information pattern (see the link above). Weird stuff, but no weirder than OTHER forms of string theory….*/

Such assumption has nothing to do with string theory, so it cannot be another form of it (until we consider, every suffuciently abstract insight is in fact sort of string theory). But every theory is defined by its postulate set and everything else is just grant politics.

]]>By: John Novakhttp://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=3677#comment-866046
John NovakFri, 15 Jan 2010 18:54:50 +0000http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=3677#comment-866046Well, I don't have the physics to really understand this in depth, either. But, I am at least sympathetic to the arguments being made.
The connection between physical entropy and information entropy were noted for years (decades, really) by no less luminary figures than Claude Shannon, and remarked as mere curiosities and quirks of mathematical form. Of course, we now know they're not, and that the connection is deep, fundamental, and informative: Information <i>is</i> physical, and there is no two ways around it.
So I force myself to maintain a sympathetic eye to arguments which run, "this math over here corresponds to that math over there," as long as the reasoning behind the comparison is itself deep and mathematical. That this is one involving entropy (again) is just gravy.Well, I don’t have the physics to really understand this in depth, either. But, I am at least sympathetic to the arguments being made.

The connection between physical entropy and information entropy were noted for years (decades, really) by no less luminary figures than Claude Shannon, and remarked as mere curiosities and quirks of mathematical form. Of course, we now know they’re not, and that the connection is deep, fundamental, and informative: Information is physical, and there is no two ways around it.

So I force myself to maintain a sympathetic eye to arguments which run, “this math over here corresponds to that math over there,” as long as the reasoning behind the comparison is itself deep and mathematical. That this is one involving entropy (again) is just gravy.